Sampling Your Sound Card on a PC

Scribbled by Lethal Illness @ 2:58 PM on May 6th, 2010.

Have you ever heard that one really dope track that you’ve been looking for, for well forever? Jamglue shutdown yesterday so now your first resorts for that rare soul track you’ve been looking for are YouTube, CrazyPellas, and your favorite blog, but alas no luck. After weeks of searching on various search engines you come across the only run-down blog that has the soul track you’re looking for – but wait! It is in a flash player (YouTube, Mixpod, etc.), which you can obviously can’t download from. You’re now stuck at square one – right? Wrong! Your solution? Sampling your sound card! In this post I will show even the most computer illiterate how to sample audio from a sound card from any source including YouTube, Soundclick, Myspace, any site, or program.

Unfortunately, I will have to write two separate guides for PC and Mac users as we can not use the same program to do this method because the Mac version of the program is missing features. This guide is for PC users, Mac users check this post out.

Prerequisites:

PC with audio capabilities. – I think you have this one.
The audio source you want.
Knowledge to download a program.

Now that you have that big long prerequisites list of three checked off it is time to prepare to record the sound.

How to Sample Audio off your Sound Card:

Downloading & Installing Audacity

There are many methods and programs to record audio from your sound card, however I find Audacity one of the easiest, cheapest (free), and fastest ways to get it done with no problems. First we will need to download Audacity 1.2.6.

After downloading Audacity you will need to install Audacity like any other basic program on Windows. Just simply open up the .exe (the file downloaded) and keep hitting next until it is installed. I promise if you’ve never done it before you will not have a problem.

Downloading & Installing LAME MP3 Encoder

If you want to save the audio source you’re trying to sample as an MP3 for your iPod we will need to get the LAME MP3 encoder. PC users will need to download this file Edit: I directly uploaded this file to media-fire myself because the site I got it from doesn’t allow hot-linking, if the link dies download the .zip from here . Remember the place you save the LAME MP3 encoder as you might need it a little later on, do not set to open after downloaded. After it has been downloaded we will need to install the LAME MP3 encoder;

1. Launch Audacity, click Edit, then Preferences, then click the File Formats tab.
2. Find the MP3 Export section.
3. Click on the “Find Library” button.
4. When it asks you a bunch of crap just click the “Yes” button.
5. In the pop up dialog box navigate to the folder you’ve placed the lame_enc.dll [the file you downloaded above] and highlight (click) it.
6. Click Open and then OK.

Installing LAME into Audacity Steps 2-4

Sampling Your Soundcard

Alas we are now almost ready to sample your sound card!

First you will need to have your audio source handy. For simplicity my audio source will be YouTube, so I navigate to this awesome video which features a dope song from Lamont Dozier (Black Bach). After you navigate to your source don’t hit play just yet!

Now you have to launch Audacity if you don’t have it opened already from installing the LAME MP3 encoder. Towards the top right-ish of Audacity you will see a speaker icon with a -/+ slider and next to that is a mic icon with a -/+ slider. You can leave them as they are, if your recorded audio is too loud or too low after recording you can always adjust them later and rerecord. However, the most important setting is in the preferences. Once again like when you installed the LAME MP3 encoder, you will need to click Edit at the top, then Preferences. The default tab should be Audio I/O, under the Playback section you need to make sure your sound card is selected (most likely it will be default). Under that is the Recording section, now this is where we will need to click the drop-down box and select “What U Hear” alternatively if you don’t have a sound card made by Creative this option could be named “Stereo Mix” or “Mix”.

Selecting "What U Hear" in Recording Section

To get that audio into Audacity we need to hit the record button on the top, then go back and play your audio source (in this case mine is YouTube), let it play out until the song is done and then hit stop on Audacity. Remember: make sure all other programs that make sound (AIM, iTunes, etc.) are silenced because if they make sound through the speakers they will also be recorded.

Playing YouTube, Recording into Audacity

Now you should have a pretty little blue wave of audio and the final thing we have to do is save. Simply click File now you have a choice whether to Export As MP3 or Export As WAV. I would choose MP3 if it’s a song you want on your iPod or WAV if you need the best quality you can get. Congratulations PC users you now can record what ever you want.

Saving as MP3 or WAV

If they’re are any problems don’t hesitate to comment or let me know how it went for you.